PHP Mall - User Stores Packages

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User Stores Packages

Details iBoutique.MALL lets you create various stores hosting packages (free or paid) with different different number of allowed products allocated for each of them. When new users (store administrator) sign up they could choose for their website one of the packages you have created. The users can also switch between the different packages later from their admin space.

In order to illustrate how the packages work, let's consider that on your website you have created two packages – the first one “Basic” with 10 allowed products and free of charge and a second one “Premium” with quota 1000 allowed products with price $10.00 paid every 3 months (for the billing, currently you may choose between 1-3-6-12-24 months).
When a new user sings up he could choose between:
1)“Basic” - since this package is free the website will be instantly activated and the user will be able to start using his website immediately and login directly in his admin space
2)“Premium” - in this case the website will be created (no other user will be able to sign up with the same username) but it will not be active until the user payment is received
- if the user has chosen to pay with PayPal, his website will be instantly activated when the corresponding PayPal IPN for the payment is received, if for any reason the payment fails, his website will be activated but the “Basic” package will be set for this website (not the “Premium” one, the user could upgrade later his package from his admin)
- if a user choose to pay with cheque or money order, his website will be activated as soon as his cheque/money order is received and validated from the back office by the administrator

If a user reaches the products quota set for his package, the page allowing him to add new products to its store will be deactivated. The user should in such case either delete any of his products or upgrade his package with a new one providing more space.
The user can upgrade his package from the “Package” page in his admin. The new selected package will be activated as soon as the user payment is confirmed (based on IPN for PayPal or by the administrator from the back office)

Please note that if you plan to run a completely free website for the users, you could turn off the paid packages and payment features by simply changing the value of SERVICE_IS_FREE to “true” in the website config.php

You may find answers of some frequently asked questions related to the website packages management below.

1.How to create a new website package?
2.How to modify the information for an existing website package?
3.What payment methods could I use for the paid packages?
4.What happen if a PayPal payment of a user fails?
5.How the users can switch from one package to another?

1.How to create a new website package?

You can add new website packages from the Stores->Packages page in the back office.

Fields in the “Add a new package form”:

NAME – name of the package, please use short and descriptive names, such as “Basic”, “Premium” etc. (since the name of the package appears also as name of the product when using PayPal payments, if you set a too long name this could provoke an error in PayPal)

DESCRIPTION – description of the website package, this description is visible for the users on the forms for selecting a website package

NUMBER OF ALLOWED PRODUCTS – the total number of allowed products that the store administrator will be able to enter on his store

PRICE – the price of package in the following format “14.99” , enter “0.00” if the package is free

BILLED (MONTHS) – number of months, at the end of this period the user will be billed, if you enter “3” he will be billed every 3 months

ACCEPT PAYPAL – if set to TRUE, PayPal will be accepted for this package

ACCEPT CHEQUES – if set to TRUE, cheques will be accepted for this package

ACCEPT BANK TRANSFERS – if set to TRUE, bank transfers will be accepted for this package

2.How to modify the information for an existing website package?

On the Stores->Packages page in the back office you could see the list of your existing website packages. Click on the Modify icon to change the current values for a given package and you'll be able to edit the information for it.

3.What payment methods could I use for the paid packages?

For every package you could specify the available payment options between the followings:

PayPal

Please note that in order to use PayPal, you need to enable IPN from your PayPal admin interface. To enable IPN for your Business Account on PayPal, simply visit your account on the PayPal Web site and turn the feature on. As part of this process, you also need to supply PayPal with the URL of the script capable of trapping IPN signals and taking appropriate action based on each on your site which is – http://www.yourdomain.com/ipn.php

After you enable IPN from the PayPal site for your account, you need to edit website_config.php and put there the appropriate PayPal settings:

//THE CURRENCY SYMBOL SHOWN ON THE WEBSITE
$CURRENCY_SYMBOL="$";

//THE CURRENCY CODE WHICH WILL BE USED FOR PAYPAL PAYMENTS
//SOME OF THE AVAILABLE OPTIONS ARE: USD EUR GBP ...
$PAYPAL_CURRENCY_CODE="USD";

//THE PRIMARY PAYPAL ACCOUNT USED FOR ACCEPTING PAYMENTS FROM PAYPAL
//paypal@paypal.com

-Cheques

Please note that the cheque payments should be validated manually by the administrator as soon as they are received.
The Cheques Payments can be validated from the back office Stores->Payments page.

The address to which the cheques should be sent, has to be modified in the website configuration file - config.php

//ADDRESS TO WHICH THE CHEQUES SHOULD BE SENT
$CHEQUE_ADDRESS="[cheques address goes here]";

- Bank wire transfers

The bank wire transfers should be managed in the same way as the cheque payments.

The bank account information should be set in the config file:

//IF BANK WIRE TRANSFERS ARE ACCEPTED YOU SHOULD PLACE THE BANK
//ACCOUNT DETAILS HERE, IN THE FORMAT YOU WOULD LIKE THE USERS TO SEE IT
$BANK_WIRE_TRANSFER_INFO="[BANK ACCOUNT INFO]";

4.What happen if a PayPal payment of a user fails?

If a payment fails, the system will set the free package for this user.

You may see below the different IPN signals that can be received:

subscr_payment - a subscriber has paid for the service
subscr_failed - a subscriber tried to pay for the service but things didn't work out
subscr_cancelled - a subscriber cancelled a subscription
subscr_eot - a subscriber has reached the end of the subscription term
subscr_modify - a subscriber profile has been modified

If subscr_payment is received, this will activate the user's website or extend the expiration time for the selected paid package. All the other, will cease the user subscript for the paid package and the system will set automatically the free package for this user.

5. How the users can switch from one package to another?

The users can switch from one package to another, from the Package page in their admin space.

Please note that the new package will be activated when the user payment is validated, until then the settings of the current package will take effect.

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Article information

Article ID:	37
Category:	PHP Mall
Date added:	2010-10-13 00:02:39
Views:	551
Rating (Votes):	(27)

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